As part of its Autumn Economic Forecast for 2021, the European Commission predicted GDP growth in Serbia of 6.7 percent for 2021.
This is a significant improvement in relation to the Spring forecast of the Commission, which predicted a growth of 5.3 percent of GDP in 2021 for Serbia.
With this forecast, Serbia has better GDP growth projections for 2021 compared to the EU and the Eurozone, which are projected to grow by five percent.
The Commission predicts Serbia’s economic growth of 4.3 percent of GDP in 2022, which is at the same level as the projected growth of the EU and Eurozone economies, but also an improvement compared to the Spring forecast, which projected 4 percent of GDP growth for Serbia in 2022. For 2023, the EC projects the growth of Serbia of 4.3 percent of GDP in relation to 2.5 percent in the EU.
According to the EC estimate, the public debt of Serbia will amount to 58.1 percent of GDP in 2021, while the value of 56.3 percent of GDP is projected for 2022, which are values below the Maastricht criteria.
For 2023, Brussels projects a further reduction of Serbia’s public debt to 54.1 percent of GDP.
The EC predicts that the unemployment rate in Serbia will be 10.7 percent in 2021, while a further decline and a value of 10 percent is expected in 2022.
An unemployment rate of 9.2 percent is projected for 2023.
The Commission also increased its economic growth projections in the region in its autumn forecasts.
For Croatia, it now predicts growth of 8.1 percent this year compared to the spring forecast of 5 percent, for Slovenia it projects growth of 6.4 percent (previously projected 5.5 percent), for Montenegro 10.7 percent (previously 7.1 percent), and Northern Macedonia forecasts an economic expansion of 4 percent (previously 3.7 percent).
The commission also raised growth estimates for Albania to 4.7 per cent from the previously expected 4 per cent and for Turkey to 9 per cent from 5.2 percent forecast last spring.
Regarding the global growth economy, the EC slightly raised the projection for this year from the previous 5.6 to 5.7 percent. In the autumn forecasts, it significantly improved the GDP growth rate of Great Britain, to 6.9 percent from the previously estimated 5 percent, as well as Russia to 3.9 percent in relation to the spring projection of 2.7 percent.
In contrast, the Commission expects lower US growth in 2021 than originally forecast. The EC now believes that the American economy will record a growth rate of 5.8 percent this year, compared to 6.3 percent, as predicted in the spring report on the economic outlook, while keeping the projection for China unchanged at 7.9 percent, RTS reports.
